1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a surface light source having directivity in a predetermined direction, a surface light source for displaying a 3D image on a liquid crystal display panel, and a liquid crystal display device including the surface light source.
2. Description of the Related Art
The following is known as a conventional liquid crystal display device designed to display a 3D image. In the device, a left-eye image is displayed by pixels on alternate lines of a liquid crystal display panel, and a right-eye image is displayed by pixels on the remaining alternate lines. The device then allows a display observer to observe the left- and right-eye images by the left and right eyes, respectively, through a lenticular lens which distributes the exit light from the pixels on one line of the liquid crystal display panel and the exit light from pixels on the other line in the left-eye direction and right-eye direction of the observer or a parallax barrier which is formed in a striped pattern by alternately arranging a plurality of light-transmitting portions and light-shielding portions parallel to the pixel lines of the liquid crystal display panel (see Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publications No. 3-119889, 7-005455, and No. 10-268230).
The conventional liquid crystal display device designed to display a 3D image displays a left-eye image by the pixels on alternate lines of the liquid crystal display panel, and a right-eye image by the pixels on the remaining alternate lines, and hence the resolution of the two images is low.
In addition, in the conventional liquid crystal display device described above, a lenticular lens with a lens pitch corresponding to the pixel pitch of the liquid crystal display panel or a parallax barrier with a light-transmitting portion pitch corresponding to the pixel pitch must be arranged such that each lens portion or light-transmitting portion accurately corresponds to the pixel on a corresponding line of the liquid crystal display panel in a predetermined positional relationship. This makes it difficult to manufacture the device.